The fatal failings of the UK asylum system

The Guardian – Last weekend, three members of a family jumped together to their deaths from a Glasgow tower block. It’s said that they were Russians whose asylum claims had been rejected. However, most deaths among asylum seekers don’t make national news, as is made clear by a report compiled by Harmit Athwal for the Institute for Race Relations in 2006.

Driven to Desperate Measures catalogued the deaths of 213 asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers who had been murdered in racist attacks or died in accidents since 1989; 57 had killed themselves, and – a little-known, appalling fact – nine of these had set themselves on fire, mostly in public places; and 11 died at their own hands in immigration detention centres or holding centres. But most of the suicides took place in the community, which can be a cold place for fugitives from horrors most of us will never have to face.

I rang Athwal to ask if there had been more suicides since her grim dossier came out. She opened a file and counted up to 39, although this, she said, wasn’t a comprehensive figure. She is the only person keeping count, getting details from asylum seeker and refugee networks, NGOs, charities, campaigners, social workers and local papers.

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Minister attends immigration debate in Wakefield

UKBA – Stakeholders in Wakefield had the opportunity to discuss immigration matters with the Minister for Borders and Immigration, Phil Woolas, at a regional ‘immigration debate’ event last week.

The minister joined Jeremy Oppenheim, the UK Border Agency’s regional director for the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, for the question-and-answer session in Wakefield Town Hall. With them on the panel were Councillor Olivia Rowley, a Wakefield Council cabinet member and chair of the Regional Migration Partnership, and UK Border Agency deputy chief executive Jonathan Sedgwick.

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200 Zimbabweans currently detained in UK

The Zimbabwe Times – The British government is holding at least 209 Zimbabweans at its immigration centres and prisons, it was announced Thursday.

The figure was announced in the House of Lords after a question had been raised on the deportation of foreign nationals and the number of them currently held in detention centres and prisons in Britain.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office Lord Alan West of Spithead said the British government had announced in a written ministerial statement on October 29 last year that authorities were looking to normalising the returns policy to Zimbabwe progressively as and when the political situation developed.

According to latest HM Prison Service figures, as at December 18, 2009, there were 209 Zimbabwean nationals in prisons including those in the immigration removal centres, Dover, Haslar and Lindholme.

The 209 included those held on remand, serving custodial sentences or held under the Immigration Act 1971.

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Immigration and asylum statistics released

UKBA – Quarterly statistics covering immigration and asylum were published by the Home Office today.

These statistics include asylum applications, total removals for those illegally in the UK and migration from eastern Europe for the period October to December 2009.

Figures show that applications for asylum have dropped in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 4,765 – a 30 per cent reduction compared to the same quarter in 2008, and the lowest level since the second quarter of 1992.

Decisions on asylum cases have also risen 36 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2008, with the grant rate for asylum falling to 13 per cent.

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Huge rise in unresolved asylum cases revealed

The Guardian – Labour’s record on tackling asylum faces a fresh onslaught today over figures that show a new backlog of 30,000 cases and a warning by the government’s immigration watchdog that its targets are currently “unachievable”.

John Vine also makes clear that a special five-year exercise which began in 2006 to clear the legacy of 450,000 unresolved asylum cases is now unlikely to meet its July 2011 target completion date. The setbacks mean that despite progress the Labour government will go into the ­general election campaign unable to claim that the asylum system has been fixed after John Reid famously declared the Home Office’s immigration directorate “unfit for purpose” in May 2006.

The report from Vine, his first on ­asylum as the UK Border Agency’s independent inspector, says there is no belief among frontline immigration staff that their official target of resolving 90% of new asylum applications within six months by the end of next year is achievable.

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Rules change for foreign students to be debated

Free Movement – The Lib Dems have tabled an objection to the latest Immigration Rules changes, covered earlier here on the blog. Under the ’scrutiny-lite’ negative resolution procedure by which the rules become law there will therefore, unusually, be a debate in Parliament on the new rules. Although on past form probably not until after they have taken effect.

I can only assume that the educational lobby is behind this, rather than any point of principle the Lib Dems have suddenly fixed on. As discussed earlier, universities are being very hard hit on two fronts right now. Central government is slashing direct funding, while UKBA has also slaughtered the cash cow that were foreign students. Part of the cut-backs to the numbers of foreign students is no doubt deliberate, but a lot of it also seems to be through accident and incompetence.

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UK to ignore EU directive on Asylum Detentions

The Guardian – Home Office ministers are to opt out of a European directive which lays down minimum standards for the treatment of asylum claims because it would mean abandoning a fast-track process that leads to hundreds of asylum seekers being detained every year.

The decision has been criticised by immigration lawyers and peers who believe the detention of asylum seekers at Yarl’s Wood and Harmondsworth removal centres “under the detained fast-track” procedure leads to rushed and unfair decisions because there is no time to gather evidence.

The fast-track asylum procedure was introduced in 2003 and involves immigration officers making an initial decision within two weeks while the asylum seeker is in detention.

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UKBA Vows to tackle Immigration and Border Crime

UKBA – Borders and Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has launched a new UK Border Agency crime and law enforcement strategy.

The five-year strategy, ‘Protecting our border, protecting the public’ was launched today at a conference on organised crime.

Before the conference, Phil Woolas said:

‘The agency is the UK’s first line of defence against criminals, smugglers and illegal immigrants. Protecting the public lies at the heart of what we do. Combating border and immigration crime, such as drugs smuggling and large-scale facilitation of illegal entry, is a core part of that role.

‘We can be proud of our achievements, but in this new strategy we are positioning ourselves to tackle these crimes more coherently and effectively. We are already actively working with law enforcement partners, particularly in pilot areas in the North West and the Midlands. It is only through collaboration that we can deploy the necessary variety of approaches to intervene and reduce the harm caused by organised crime.’

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Yarl’s Wood Hunger Strikers Speak

The Guardian – Twenty women at Yarl’s Wood ­detention centre in Bedford have been on hunger strike for two and a half weeks in protest at their treatment by the immigration ­authorities. Here, one of them, Denise McNeil, tells her story:

 I have been on hunger strike for more than a fortnight. I feel weak and get terrible headaches. A ­doctor says I should eat, but I am still refusing food. I can’t sleep because I am woken every hour of the night when the light goes on and somebody here checks on me.

The women have been through terrible experiences – some are survivors of rape and torture – but we are treated like criminals. When we staged a protest two weeks ago, we were locked in a corridor, with no water or toilet facilities. After two hours, some women felt sick. One had an asthma attack and we begged the officers to let her out, but they refused. Since then, I have been detained in isolation.

I came to the UK from Jamaica in April 2000. My brother had been murdered by a gang, and my sister was going to be a witness at the trial – then she was killed too. I realised I would be murdered if I stayed, so I came to Britain. My son, then seven, joined me a few months later.

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UKBA changes approved English language test providers

UKBA – The UK Border Agency has withdrawn the following organisation and test from its list of approved English language test providers for Tier 1 and Tier 2 of the points-based system.

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